Being at home with my parents for 2 weeks is turning out to be more of a challenge than I expected. Listening to them bicker more than usual, hearing the resentment in my mums voice, the inability to forgive and forget and all the regrets that she has is somehow scary and heartbreaking in the same time.
It's heartbreaking because your realise that at 60, your mum is unhappy, frustrated and generally quite depressed with her life, longing for all the things she could have done, been and never dared to. "This isn't the way I wanted to live my life", she said. You realise that your mum is getting old, she is more emotional than ever and that despite the fact that you haven't got much to do with her own personal happiness because you were born 30 years too late into her life, you wish there was something you could do to help. Help her come to terms with the present, help her be brave and move on with her life if that's what she wants, show her support in all that she does.
It's heartbreaking because the man making her life miserable is your dad. And despite the fact that he has always been a good dad to you, he is a bad husband. And you love your dad because in so many ways you admire him as a person, because he has always been there for you as a dad when you needed him most and because he deserves to be happy in his own life. And he is very likely that he is not, but he is just not telling you because he realises how hard it is for a child to hear that from their parents and he realises that it's better for me not to hear him saying how unhappy he is and telling me about their relationship problems when there is nothing I can do about it.
And I am also finding myself growing up, not really liking living with my parents anymore, not really wanting to be all spoiled and treated as a child. So I am feeling guilty because this has always been their roles, as my parents, to spoil me, to do everything for me when I am home and protect me from everything. And tonight, I made myself a salad, a simple salad and my mum felt so helpless because she is so used to doing everything for me that not being able to do everything for me leaves her with lost, not knowing who she is anymore because this is the only thing that defines her.
And when it comes to dad, I have always been daddy's little girl. And all of a sudden this whole game seems childish and stupid to me. And again, I feel so guilty cause I am torn between wanting to stop pretending but risking to hurt them and pretending and feeling like I am someone else and feeling guilty and lying.
All of these mixed emotions and thoughts are very scary because I realised I don't want to end up like my parents, looking back at my life and wondering about all the things I could've done. I also don't want to be old, have Parkinson's and no one in my life to love me enough to stay with me even through this horrific disease cause I have alienated everyone that was able to love me like that.
I am afraid of the rest of my life and not being equipped good enough not to repeat my parents mistakes, but also not to fall onto the other extreme. I have wanted it badly all my life.... Balance. That's because I will probably never be able to have it.
I am very scared and heartbroken.
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